Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Guide – Tips For Starting Out

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is here and with that brings lots of new elements of gameplay that you will have to learn. As a result, we thought we would give you some tips to help out in the early going, where you may just be getting back in the groove of playing a Metal Gear Solid game, or perhaps even playing the series for the first time.

One of the mechanics that was introduced in Ground Zeroes is even more useful and needed in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the ability to mark your opponents. Unlike past games where you just get a map that shows where you opponents are at most times, here you must pull our your binoculars and scope the area out.

While using the binoculars you can easily mark your target, though it may take a few tries if they are on the move. After doing this, your screen will not have a red marker for where that enemy is walking. You likely won’t find every enemy this way, but it helps with a good portion of them.

Just remember that when marking, there are three levels of zoom that you can use, though the most zoomed in type is kind of blurry. Keep on the look out for enemies this way and it will save you a lot of trouble.

After marking enemies and being ready to go after them, another good tip is to make sure you have your suppressor equip and ready on your pistol. Just like in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the suppressor is not always attached to a weapon, but rather has a limited amount of uses. If you are trying to be stealthy, this is the key to avoiding alert situations throughout.

Another mechanic introduced in Ground Zeroes was Reflex Mode, which gives you a few seconds to react and take out an enemy that spots you. If you can manage to get a quick headshot in with your pistol here with a suppressor, you may be able to avoid a full on alert that could spell trouble for you quickly.

If you do by chance get an alert and are not too deep into an area or complex, you may want to just try and escape. Utilizing your horse is probably the quickest way of escape and could give you a chance to scope out an area again after perhaps realizing an enemy filled area you missed before.

Another tip that is more of an option for you is that there are numerous side tasks within each mission that you can try and complete in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Some of these are very simple and can be done quickly, while others are a lot more complicated. If you are just playing for the story and not as a completionist, most of these can be outright skipped if you so choose.

That’s just a few tips to help you out in the early parts of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. We will be back with more tips guides as we play further into the game, as well as plenty of boss guides and others, so make sure to stay tuned for those.